Perpetuating The Laws
by strandedthought
Summary: Collection of one-shots based on strange sayings.PARKINSON'S FIFTH LAW:If there is a good way to delay an important decision, the good bureaucracy, will find it. Desperate Times: With a certain proposal under the Fuhrer Mustang's nose, Riza must stop it.
1. Havoc's Calling

I don't own FMA or Freeman's Rule

**FREEMAN'S RULE:**  
Circumstances can force a generalized incompetent to become competent, at least in a specialized field.

* * *

Sitting slumped over in the uncomfortable wooden chair, the young man watched the muscles on his forearm tighten and relax while he clenched and unclenched his fist. Without looking into that beveled glass, he knew exactly where the talk being held in the office across from his was going.

The dean would explain, as politely as possible, while still being frank, that he was beyond help, and then his mother would get to her feet and defend him.

* * *

"What do you mean, no hope!" she hissed, staring down the balding man still seated behind his desk.

"Mrs. Havoc, we've tried everything: a slower paced class, tutor sessions, pairing him up with our brightest students, and, well, you know the whole list. Nothing has helped him. His grades are still far below average," he explained, his eyes following the young man's mother as she paced back and forth in front of his desk.

"He's not stupid," she barked.

"I didn't say that, ma'am. He's just not a scholar. I hear he's a good help on the farm. Farming is a good career," he prompted.

"Not a stable one," she snapped, and stopped her pacing. "My boy will become more than a simple farm hand, just you wait and see, Mr. Taybern," she swore.

Mr. Taybern buried his head in his hands and sighed as she closed the door of his office on her way out.

Jean was counting the tiles on the ceiling when he heard the door open, and quickly straightened in the chair.

"C'mon, you'll be home schooled for the rest of the year," she explained.

He nodded as he got to his feet and followed his mom down the hall. They walked in silence for a while, with him following less than a step behind her. When they got to the dirt road that led to a small cluster of farms she slowed down just enough so that he was walking even with her. "Don't slouch," she told him.

Jean straightened to his full height before she could reach behind him and poke him in the middle of his spine. "Does Dad need any help?" he asked as he removed his hand from his pants pocket to rub the back of his neck.

His mother stopped, and he copied her a step later. He wasn't prepared for the upset look on her face that he saw when he turned to face her. "Mom?" he asked, taking a half step towards her.

"Jean, there's nothing wrong with being a farmer, but you can do so much better," she said, her head tilted up so her eyes could meet his gaze.

"Yeah. Thanks, Ma," he said with a wide grin, and then continued along the dirt road.

* * *

The winter nights on the farm were usually quite, but Jean found his eyes snapping open to shouts coming from inside and outside the house. Before he'd even pulled the covers off himself his father's figure was silhouetted in the doorway of his room.

"C'mon boy, there're wolves. They already hit the Starkets' coop," his father announced.

Jean stuck his feet into unlaced boots at the foot of his bed, not bothering to pull the bottoms of his flannel pajama pants out of them as he tied the laces. He followed his dad out the back door at the end of the hallway and to the shed where his mother waited, holding out a jacket for him.

"George, do you really need him?" his mother whispered, while handing a rifle to his father.

"You're the one always sayin' not to underestimate him, Barb," he mumbled back.

"He could get hurt," she hissed.

"Sometimes, it takes pressure to learn how to handle a gun. He'll be fine," he reassured her.

Jean tried not to focus on the brief exchange while he checked the rifle with shaky hands.

"There're bullets in the right pockets," she said, her voice louder now, meant for him to hear.

The world came back as he noticed the weight of the pocket on his right side, and he heard the yelling again, words warped by the wind. A fire burned, flickering brightly on the edge of his neighbor's land to keep the wolves from the livestock. He looked from the pulsating fire to is father, and they ran, leaving his mother and sisters get their chickens to safety.

The shouting was getting closer and so was the sound of gunshots. Jean could barely make out the flare of the gunshots in the dark of the moonless night, but they were coming toward him and his father.

"To the left, boy," his father shouted.

Jean obeyed, and soon he heard snarling. He thought his eyes were playing tricks on him, but the dark shape that had seemed to fly past wheeled around.

"Get ready," his father whispered.

Jean tucked the butt of the rifle against his shoulder and trained his sightes one the shape hurtling in his direction. He couldn't make out the size of the wolf very well in the dark, but focused on the lung area. Everything his father had always taught him was coming back, but now he was able to understand it, and bring it all together. His finger was on the trigger, and he let out half a breath.

He didn't know if the yelp he heard was his or the wolf's, but he didn't have time to think about it, he had recovered from the recoil, was back in stance, and ready for the next shot.

"There're more," his father called, and Jean realized the lump in front of him was the wolf, it was down.

Jean let out the breath he was holding, and noticed three more people had joined them in the dark field with their backs to each other.

A shadow was barreling towards them from his side, and an instant later it crumpled to the ground, whining.

Jean dug into his pocket for bullets and reloaded with steady hands.

* * *

Jean sat at the table, still in his flannels and thick jacket, now lighter without the bullets.

"I thought you said the boy wasn't any good with a gun," Mr. Starket commented.

"Turns out he just needed to learn under different circumstances," his father replied with a gruff laugh.

Jean shrugged as he took a sip of the beer his father had set in front of him.

"You know, he should check out the military," Mr. Starket suggested.

"Maybe," Jean managed to get out through a yawn.

"Good job, boy," Mr. Starket congratulated with a clap on Jean's shoulder as he got up. "I should be headed back now. No doubt Mary's a bit frantic with the loss of half the coop."

"Let us know if you need some help," Jean's father said, following the man out the door.

"You should get some sleep," his mother said as she walked into the room from the kitchen.

Jean nodded in reply and watched his mom pour the remaining beer from his mug to the one his father was drinking from.

She followed him to his room and took the jacket from him.

"What do you think of the military?" he asked while unlacing his boots.

"I think it suits you," she answered, and then left him to his own thoughts.

**A.N.** - Written for a series of prompts from the book Murphy's Law and Other Reasons Things Go Gnorw! by Arthur Bloch. This series will be a collection of my responses to those prompts, and will use an array of characters, mainly the military characters.


	2. Fuery the Grunt

I don't own FMA

**VAIL'S AXIOM:**  
In any human enterprise, work seeks the lowest hierarchical level.

Fuery hadn't quite expected this when he'd signed onto the military, sure he knew he'd have to work his way up, but he didn't know the bottom would be so bad. His specialty was wires, not coffee.

"You know, if they'd ask me to fix this coffee machine I could do that, but get the right coffee for everyone and make it back to the top floor without spilling it, now that's going to be a problem," he joked with the guy working behind the counter.

The guy behind the counter muttered something that sounded an awful lot like, _'I'll give you something to complain about, Grunt'_ and Fuery gave him a weak smile. He thanked the man as he took the last cup, and made his way over to the counter filled with sugar, creamer, lids, and straws. This was the first step. He pulled out a list and carefully started adding the earlier specified amounts of sugar and cream to each cup, marking each with a name as he finished it. The last, and most difficult, task was next—delivering them all to his superiors on the seventh floor without spilling anything. This task wouldn't have been so bad, if not for the problem he should be working on…the elevators. Of course, he couldn't say that to his superiors, they would think he was being insubordinate, and remind him that people were already working on the elevators.

He took each step slowly, hugging the warm, paper cups to his chest as he went. He was just past the landing of the second floor when a group of men rushed past. One nudged Fuery's elbow as he passed, and Fuery thought the officer, a second lieutenant, was about to apologize, but the man shook his head and mumbled a phrase Fuery would rather forget he heard about grunts always being in the way.

Fuery ignored the heat seeping through his uniform where a splash of coffee had landed on his arm and continued on his way, thankful that the lids had stopped more than the small amount of liquid from burning him.

Once he made it to the seventh floor, and delivered all but one of the coffee cups (without any thanks), he walked into the Colonel's office. The burly man was partaking in an intense conversation over the phone, which Fuery didn't pay any attention to, and didn't even stop his speech to the person on the other end of the line when Fuery set down the lukewarm concoction.

He had nearly escaped when the man barked his name. Fuery spun around, and gave a quick salute. "You're needed down on the third floor, something about some lines being down, and don't go wandering off on coffee runs again, Grunt, it just causes more work for the people looking to find you," his superior ordered, the phone still pressed to his ear.

Fuery was nearly out the door when the man called him again. He turned to salute again, but the colonel was, once more, immersed in his conversation, the only thing out of place was the envelope he held out in Fuery's direction.

Fuery gingerly made his way back to the desk, and found his name printed on the manila envelope.

The colonel waved it impatiently, and without further hesitation Fuery snagged it out of his hand.

"Thank you, Sir," he said, and saluted as he fled the room.

Down on the third floor, Fuery found his fellow tech specialists shooting ideas back in forth in a conference room. He was briefed about the elevator situation just as he entered the room, but the brainstorming ceased when they saw the envelope in his hands.

"Reassignment already?" one asked.

"Reassignment?" Fuery echoed.

"Open it," a man Fuery vaguely recognized prompted.

Fuery undid the brads and pulled open the tab. Two pieces of parchment slid into his hands as he emptied the envelope.

"Where you goin'?" another voice asked.

"Eastern…tomorrow," Fuery answered, skimming the page, and moving on to the next one. "As a sergeant," he finished.

"Nice, out of this place, and a promotion," one man whistled.

"Didn't one of the alchemists from Eastern recently visit here?" the man Fuery recognized asked, taking the papers out of Fuery's hands.

Fuery nodded, trying to grab the papers from his comrade.

"Working with Colonel Mustang now…the Flame Alchemist. What'd you do while he was here?" the man asked.

"I don't know," Fuery answered, finally getting his reassignment papers back. "I…I need to go pack," he stuttered, shoving the documents back in the envelope as he left the room.

"Hey, the elevators," someone called behind him.

"I've got new orders," he shouted back, and left them on their own.

* * *

Fuery grumbled as he marched through the warm halls of Eastern Headquarters, the documents under his arm fluttering with the wind haunting the corridors.

"More paperwork, Colonel," he announced as he entered the office he shared with five others.

The raven haired man glared up at him and gave a sigh.

"Don't even think about cleaning the windows, or burning anything," the lone female in the office warned, never looking up from the report she was reviewing.

"Just put it here," the Flame Alchemist ordered. "Oh, and you've got more paperwork, too, Kid," he informed Fuery.

Fuery looked over at his desk, and copied the colonel's earlier sigh.

As he pulled the pen from his desk, Fuery spied the older stack on the Colonel's desk, which had decreased in size a bit quicker than usual, and Fuery wondered how much of the paperwork really should have been on his desk. As he blotted out a misspelled word, he decided that paperwork really wasn't that bad, at least, not compared to the coffee runs he used to make.

**A.N. - **Thus, number two of this collection is complete, and we've had some fun with Fuery! Well, I hope you enjoyed it! Four more laws to go! Thanks for reading!

Thank you for reviewing: Legendary Chimera and MoonStarDutchess.


	3. Buoyancy

I don't own FMA. MangaVerse **Chapter 52 Spoilers**!

**IMHOFF'S LAW:**  
The organization of any bureaucracy is very much like a septic tank—the really big chunks always rise to the top.

"I guess it was true," Falman muttered to himself while staring out the frosted window at mountains the train was quickly approaching.

* * *

Falman settled down with the three other members of his team, listening to Breda complain about their unfortunately late lunch.

"Fourth time this week," Breda complained as he opened the carton of milk.

"Not like Mr. I-can-set-fire-in-any-girl's-heart has had any late lunches in the past month, and he even left early for a date. With _my_ girlfriend!" Havoc cried.

"That brunette from the coffee shop?" Falman asked, quite sure he was right, since they'd all been hearing about her for the past week.

"See, even you knew she was my girlfriend!" Havoc sighed, shoving away his plate of food.

"You're not gonna eat?" Breda asked, eyeballing the food on Havoc's plate.

"You really think he knew. He just doesn't se—"

"That's number five…in half a year," Havoc cut Fuery off.

Falman watched Fuery's facial expression change to one of shock.

Their table was silent for a minute, until Havoc pulled his plate just out of Breda's reach, and stabbed his spoon into his pudding.

Falman stared at the chocolate pudding Havoc was swirling with his spoon, and then laughed at the sudden thought that popped into his head.

Havoc looked up at him with a scowl, and he gave an apologetic smile as he got his laughing under control.

All three of his comrades were staring at him when he finally spoke, "My father once told me that the organization of any bureaucracy is very much like a septic tank—the really big chunks always rise to the top."

Breda was the first to laugh, and Havoc the last one to join in, but not far behind the others.

"You know, that means you're a bigger piece than the rest of us," Breda concluded, singling out Havoc with his fork.

"Hey," Havoc grumbled.

"Aren't you being set to be promoted at the end of the month?" Falman asked Breda.

"As long as our next mission goes smoothly," Havoc piped up. "Looks like you're rising, too."

* * *

"The biggest chunks rise to the top," Falman recalled as he pulled on the standard uniform coat for the frigid weather of the North.

"Well, he didn't really rise to the top, he was placed there," he said, talking to the only person in the cabin, himself.

"Well, the rest of them rose to the top," he considered, grabbing his luggage from the over head rack as the train pulled to a stop.

"I wonder if they're any different here," he mumbled as he made his way to the exit of the nearly abandoned train.

**A.N. - **Well, I hope you enjoyed a bit of Falman's pov, so far my shortest piece, but I think it covers the prompt. Thanks for reading!

Thanks for reviewing: Legendary Chimera, Bizzy, Dailenna, MoonStarDutchess, and Kitsune Moonstar.


	4. It

I Don't own FMA

**PARKINSON'S THIRD LAW:**  
Expansion means complexity and complexity decays.

Hyemans Breda was not having a good day, and that was an understatement. There was one reason for his bad day…the newest member of their team.

* * *

He hadn't been very happy about Fuery bringing that abomination in from the rain. If it wasn't smart enough to find shelter, it should've stayed out there, but that kid had to have a soft spot.

Since then, he had to make a new routine. Being the intelligent sort of person, he knew that the sooner he came into work, the earlier he usually got away from work. Before the mongrel, he'd get to work while Hawkeye was making her rounds to pick up the day's paperwork, but not anymore. Now, he was careful to get there after her rounds were finished. Otherwise, it would pass right by him while following its master's route through the office, and it would surely try to bug him with its intolerable sniffing of his personal space.

So, before getting his timecard stamped for the morning, he always went to check the office first. If Hawkeye was there, with paperwork, he would go get his timecard punched, but if there wasn't any paperwork he'd got to the cafeteria for coffee and a snack, and then he'd clock in.

At first, he would maximize his time spent away from the mutt by refraining from taking his lunch until a few minutes from the time Hawkeye was due to return, but he found that it had taken a liking to hiding under his desk while he wasn't there, and nothing was worse than sitting down after lunch to find it curled up there. He'd fallen out of his chair the first time, only to have it attack him while he was down. As a result, he always hurried to leave the office for lunch right before Hawkeye did.

Things went well, until he started to forget to punch in, but that was only the beginning.

It started to feel neglected by him, and frequently traveled to his desk during the day. Hawkeye had already lectured him about the damage he had caused to the office, and she had even made him stay late, even later than she made Mustang stay, to clean the coffee stains out of the carpet. She watched him the whole time, and it watched him while it ate the scraps Hawkeye had gotten from the kitchen for it.

The trouble he had gotten himself into now was even worse.

* * *

Breda stole a glance through the office window, but Hawkeye's coat wasn't even on the rack. He stood there in silence for a moment, and then left the hall. Not wanting to encounter Hawkeye and it in the halls, he took a roundabout route to the cafeteria. That was how he walked into her as he turned a corner. Not just her, but her still in her coat, with a stack of paperwork under her arm, and it at her side.

This wasn't just any normal collision, because in the moment just before their bodies met, it sensed him and barked to warn her, causing him to slip in his haste to get away. Hawkeye let out an "oomph" as her feet were knocked out from under her, and it started growling.

Breda trembled, hands covering his face while it scrambled onto his chest, growling.

"Hayate, heel," Riza commanded, and it scrambled off his chest.

Breda got to his feet, and frowned at the paperwork covering the hall. "Sorry," he mumbled, joining in her effort to gather it all up quickly.

"You'll be helping me sort these out, Lieutenant," she informed him, taking the papers he held out to her.

"I still need to punch in," he commented, which earned him a sharp glance from narrowed eyes.

"We'll go by the time clock before we get to the office," she said as she turned around, leaving him to follow behind her, along with it.

In the office, Breda grudgingly moved his chair to Hawkeye's desk, and went through the pile of documents, putting each into the specified places for his co-workers and putting the multi-paged reports into their own piles.

They had just finished, when it wriggled closer to his feet. Breda jumped in his seat, jolting the desk with his knee. When he calmed himself down he saw Hawkeye using some napkins she must have had in one of her drawers to wipe up a puddle of black ink. When she caught him staring at the ink she spoke, "Lieutenant, he is only a dog, and not a vicious one. A soldier must learn to overcome their fear," she chastised.

"Yes, Sir," he responded, considering the mutt staring at him with an icy glare, wondering if it would have been better had Havoc made it into whatever dish he had mentioned that day.

It seemed to read his mind, and made it ways back under its master's desk. While Hawkeye finished cleaning up the ink spill he delivered the piles of paper to the proper desks. Just as he sat the biggest stack on Mustang's desk, said officer walked in.

Breda was about to comment on his superior office being early when he realized it was in fact the time when everyone else got in to work.

Mustang looked from Breda dropping the paperwork on his desk, to the extra chair at Hawkeye's desk, and then over to the flushed Hawkeye with a raised brow.

"Good Morning, Sir," Breda and Hawkeye said in unison, causing Mustang to frown.

"Morning," he replied, returning their salutes.

Soon, Fuery, Falman, and Havoc made their way into the office, and the tension in the office seemed to dissipate.

Throughout the morning Breda found himself stealing glances at the sniper's desk, watching for it to come out from its hiding spot and bother him, but not once did he see that black and white thing emerge.

He was finally relaxed when he heard the familiar sounds of Hawkeye organizing her desk, lid clanking closed on the inkwell, papers shuffling as she straightened them into a pile, and pens dropping into a drawer.

Breda quickly finished scrawling his name onto a report, and pushed away from his desk. It was walking toward the door by its master's side. He froze and watched her as they marched past. He noticed her eyes were a bit red, and upon thinking back to that morning, he realized they had been since they'd crashed into each other.

He mentally shrugged his concern off, knowing she wouldn't talk about it unless it was necessary.

Breda was already out of the office and just about to turn down the main hall when Mustang called out to him.

"Sir?" Breda inquired as he turned to face the colonel.

"What's this all about?" Mustang asked.

"Lunch?" Breda offered hesitantly.

"At the same time as Lieutenant Hawkeye, for a while now."

"Is there a problem with that, Sir?" he asked.

"What was that this morning?" Mustang barked.

"What was what all about?"

"I'm not blind, Second Lieutenant. Why was your chair at her desk, why was she flushed, why did you keep looking at her, why do you two go to lunch at the same time, and why is she upset today?" Mustang grilled his subordinate.

Breda smirked, realizing why his superior officer was behaving so oddly. "Well, Sir, I suppose it's all for the same reason I was stuck cleaning the carpet a couple weeks ago."

The dumbfound expression that crossed over Roy Mustang's face as he remembered the coffee incident was the turning point of Breda's day. "I hear dogs can sense fear. He's probably just trying to show you there's nothing to fear," Mustang replied, grasping at straws to save face. "Well, enjoy your lunch," he finished, and left Breda standing in the hall.

Once Mustang was out of sight, Breda chuckled to himself. Through the odd events of the day he had managed to acquire blackmail against Colonel Mustang. For a brief moment he forgot that he hated the dog, and gave it a few words of praise in his head.

**A.N.- **eek, quite a bit of exposition there in the beginning, but necessary. Thanks for reading. Oh, and if you want to know why Hawkeye was upset, that'll be explained in the next chapter!

Thanks for reviewing: Dailenna, Kitsune Moonstar, Legendary Chimera, LittleChemist, Bizzy, and MoonStarDutchess!


	5. I Don't Need Help

I don't own FMA. Mangaverse of Roy's and Riza's past.

**Parkinson's Fourth Law:  
The number of people in any working group tends to increase regardless of the amount of work to be done.**

**

* * *

  
**

Roy Mustang did not usually seek out his Lieutenant during her lunch break, but something was wrong. When he'd first seen her that morning she was flushed, and then he noticed her bloodshot eyes. Even the way she signed her paperwork, with quicker—maybe even sloppy—pen strokes, gave away her strange disposition.

His first assumption, based fully on a spout of idiocy, had been wrong, and there was no way he'd make a fool out of himself again. This time, he'd find out straight from the source.

Knowing she wouldn't be in the cafeteria, he made his way through the doors to its right, but she wasn't with the rest of the personnel at the benches scattered across the grass. He turned to go back inside, but noticed a shadow creeping out from the corner of the building.

She sat against the building, her tray of nearly untouched food off to one side, and the black and white pup curled up under her hand on the other.

"No appetite?" he asked.

A smirk spread across his face as her eyes snapped open in surprise.

"Sir?" she asked.

"Is something wrong, Lieutenant?"

"Nothing, Sir," she answered.

"Your eyes are red," he noted.

"I didn't sleep well last night," she ventured, blocking the sunlight, and thus her eyes from him, with her hand.

"Oh," he muttered, not quite believing her.

"My break is over," she announced as she got to her feet. Hayate followed her example, his tail wagging.

A frown found its place on his face as he watched her walk away.

* * *

Roy looked up from the request for time off he was reading and over to Hawkeye, sitting at her desk, with a book in her hands. She hadn't turned the page in ages.

He watched her for a few moments, noticing that he couldn't even detect the slightest movement of her eyes.

For a moment, he considered getting up, just to see if she would notice, but thought better of it, and resumed working on his paperwork. He finished the last of his work in a much more timely fashion than usually, and made his way towards the coat rack.

After his coat was on, he turned and held out her coat for her as she walked across the room.

While she pushed her arms through the sleeves of wool, he made his way to the door, and leaned against it.

She stared at him for a moment, waiting for him to move, but he kept still, and returned her gaze.

"Colonel?"

"Lieutenant?"

She narrowed her eyes and set her mouth into a fine line.

"Is there a problem, Lieutenant?"

"Yes, and it seems to be you, Colonel," she answered.

"Hawkeye, you and I both know that's not true," he remarked as he crossed his arms. "And we're not leaving until you tell me."

"I'm just tired," she repeated her earlier explanation.

"I'm not stupid, Riza," he said, using her first name to remind her that he had known her longer than most anyone else.

Her only answer was the roll of her eyes.

"You didn't think I read it, did you?" he asked as he pulled something out of his pocket.

"Well?" she questioned.

"Only if you tell me why."

"I have some things to take care of out of town."

"What things?" he inquired, shoving the paper back into his coat pocket.

"I'm sure that is none of your business, Sir," she answered.

A sigh of irritation escaped from his mouth as he moved away from the door and held it open for her.

"Good night, Hawkeye," he called to her as she walked down the hall.

Back at his desk he checked off the box of approval, and then signed the vacation request. Before leaving the building, he filled out a request for himself, found a general, and got it approved.

* * *

The city streets were dark by the time he got home, but before climbing the stairs to his apartment he checked his mailbox, and knew the answer to his question had been waiting for him all day.

He wanted to tear open the letter as soon as he saw it, but kept it tucked under his arm until he got inside his apartment.

Before he even finished reading the entire letter, he was back outside making his way to his subordinate's apartment building.

* * *

Riza grumbled as she walked to the door. Hayate wasn't barking, so she knew it must've be someone she knew standing in the hall.

Upon opening the door, she saw Roy standing there, still wearing his blues, a piece of creme colored stationary paper she recognized crumpled up in his hand.

"So, they sent you one, too," she concluded, and walked back into her apartment, leaving the door open for him to follow her in.

"I'm sorry, Riza," he mumbled, closing the door behind him.

"It's ironic, isn't it?" she asked as she made her way to the kitchen.

Roy didn't respond, but watched her get two mugs from her cupboard.

"Tea?" she offered.

"Sure," he replied as he took a seat at the small table. Hayate sat on the floor beside him, his tail brushing back and forth over the carpet. The dog closed his eyes in enjoyment as Roy reached down to scratch behind his ears.

After he had paid enough attention to Hayate he straightened back up, smoothed out the letter, and finished reading it.

"At least they salvaged some of it," he supplied as Riza sat down across from it.

A dry laugh escaped Riza's mouth as she slid a mug across the table to him. "All of his research is gone…all of it up in flames."

"Riza," Roy said, not sure what else to say.

"He knew something like this would happen. That's why…" she trailed off as she closed her eyes and took a sip of her tea.

"What will you do with what they were able to save?" he asked.

"Sell it, bring it back here. It depends what it is," she said

"I could go with you," he offered.

"No need, Gideon and Beulah have already sorted it all," she explained.

"I'm going," he told her.

"I'll be fine on my own."

"They wrote to me for a reason. I'm going," he insisted.

"You of all people know I'm fully capable of doing this on my own," she hissed.

"I'm not letting you walk into that deathtrap alone. The house was on fire. Walls, floor, stairs, and even the roof could all have been damaged. I can at least fix it enough to keep it from crumbling around you," he retorted.

"I wasn't going to go in there," she argued.

Roy snorted. "You and I both know that's not true," he said, repeating himself from earlier that day.

"Gideon and Beulah went inside," she said matter-of-factly.

"Don't think I'm not going to talk to them about that," he stated through gritted teeth. "I'm going, and that's that," he declared.

"You better finish your paperwork on time, tomorrow," she challenged.

* * *

Two days later Riza let out a groan as she found herself and Roy being greeted by not only the two innkeepers she'd entrusted to watch her father's house, but also her grandfather.

"See, you didn't need to come," she whispered to Roy as they made their way to the trio.

"So nice to see that you came too, Roy," Grumman announced, a twinkle of delight in his eyes as he shook Roy's hand.

**A.N. - Happy RoyAi Day! **Thanks for reading. The next chapter will be the last of this collection of one-shots, and also RoyAi!

Thanks for reviewing!


	6. Desperate Time Call For Desperate Measur

I don't own FMA. Future!Verse.

**PARKINSON'S FIFTH LAW:  
If there is a good way to delay an important decision, the good bureaucracy, public or private, will find it.**

As the Fuhrer, Roy had the final say on all bills that were proposed. As his main adviser, Riza Hawkeye read the fine print of each and every proposal before it even touched his desk.

General Hawkeye gave a sigh of irritation as she read through the proposal in her hands. "I bet Havoc is responsible for this," she muttered to herself as she put the document to her left, her pile of absolutely not's, before she quickly snatched it back. It was perfect timing. The bill had been stamped with the arrival date of the nineteenth, and the holiday was on the twenty-seventh, the Generals would have adjourned their meeting by then, and proposals left unsigned would be dead. She looked over at Mustang, hunched over his mountain of paperwork, and slipped the bill to the bottom of her own pile of work.

* * *

At the end of the day she marked one edge of the paper red ink, so she could easily find it in a stack of paperwork, and put it at the bottom of the stack of proposals on Mustang's desk.

"It never stops," Roy moaned.

"I told you it wouldn't, Sir, at least not until you retire," she commented.

"At this rate, I'll die of exhaustion, first," he remarked as he reached for the last of his paperwork for the day.

"I won't let that happen, Sir," she promised.

"You've divided them up into yes, no, and maybe?" he asked hopefully, eying the pile of papers she'd just added to his desk.

She nodded, and he gave a sigh of relief.

"What would I do without you?" he asked.

"Sign everything?" she suggested

"Not funny, General," he admonished, his thoughts on some of the proposals he'd read through on her days off (requests for a holiday named after the Armstrongs, an increase in taxes for the funding of an obscure lab that had turned out to conduct alchemy experiments like Tuckers', and a variety of other strange requests).

"Of course not, Sir," she replied, a smile graced her face as she turned away from him, and went back to her desk to put everything away for the night.

Roy waited at the door, ever the gentleman, holding her coat out to her. She thanked him as she slipped into the coat, and they walked out of the building together. As they walked the two blocks before they went their separate ways small talk flowed between them. Just as they reached the corner at which they parted, Roy stopped.

"Did you forget something?" she asked, as she turned to face him.

"What are you doing for the holiday?" he asked.

"I haven't decided. I might go take flowers to some people I haven't visited in a while," she answered.

"A holiday in the country does sound tempting. You know, I know the owner of an inn in the South. I hear the weather is nice this time of year," he supplied, a smirk creeping over his features.

"We've talked about that before, Sir," she shot him down.

"Well then, have a good night, Riza," he called over his shoulder as he walked across the street, leaving her on the corner until the light changed for her to cross.

* * *

Everyday for the next week when she got to the office, at her usual early time, she found the red-marked proposal and moved it to the bottom of his workload, and the document was forgotten, until she got back from lunch the day before the holiday.

"Havoc, what are you doing, making a mess of those proposals!" she inquired.

"No need to yell," he called over his shoulder.

She looked over at Roy, leaning back in his chair as he watched Havoc tear through the proposals he'd moved to the spare desk in the room.

"Apparently he proposed a bill he wants me to sign before it goes null," Roy answered for the blond's behavior.

Riza blanched, and marched over to Havoc.

Havoc froze when he felt her breath on his neck.

"Cease and desist, that's an order," she hissed in his ear, loud enough only for him to hear.

"Y-yes, Sir," he stuttered, repressing a shiver at the murderous intent oozing from his long time comrade.

"I've just remembered something else I have to do, Fuhrer, Sir," he announced as he straightened up, surprised to find Riza was already across the room.

"Well, then, what was this proposal about?" Roy inquired.

Havoc looked back and forth from the amused face of Roy to the glare Riza was aiming at him, which was far worse than the aim of her guns.

"Nothing, Sir," Havoc replied. Riza's wrath was the one he feared the most.

"Does my order not outrank hers?" Roy asked, knowing it was Riza's presence that kept Jean from talking.

Havoc gulped, and then nodded.

"Well?" Roy prodded.

"It was about, well, uh…"

While Havoc stuttered his way through an explanation Riza spotted the document Roy had in front of him, and the edge of it was colored red. She could feel the blood draining from her face, he already knew. He'd known the whole time Havoc was looking for it, too embarrassed to admit what it was about.

"May I request a private audience with you for a moment, Sir?" Riza asked, her eyes locked on Roy's.

"Your dismissed, Havoc," Roy said, righting himself in his chair.

Havoc gave a sigh of relief and nearly ran out of the room.

"Miniskirts would be a nice change of scenery," Roy suggested, letting his eyes linger on her legs as his gaze traveled back down to the document in front of him.

Riza ignored his statement and desperately played the only card she had. "I heard that a certain proprietor of a certain inn in the Southern countryside still has an open room for the holiday," she told him.

"That certainly is interesting," he thought aloud.

"But, the reservation can only be held through the night, or someone else will be able to scoop it up," she explained.

"That complicates things a bit," he remarked, looking up at the clock on the opposite wall.

"You'd have to leave now in order to pack and make the train on time."

"This proprietor, she'll be there?" he asked, holding his pen over the proposal.

"As long as time permits," she answered, her eyes flickering to the clock.

"I think my pen's run out of ink," Roy complained, as he set it down on his desk.

"That's a shame, Sir," Riza commented.

"A damn shame, General," he added. "Well, I'll be calling it a day then."

Riza straightened up her desk, and met him at the door, as usual. They left the building together, as usual.

"Have a good holiday," Roy called as they parted two blocks later, to which Riza didn't answer.

Less than an hour later, at Central Station, Roy Mustang bumped into a woman he recognized. "Fancy meeting you here, General," he greeted, a glint of mischief in his eyes.

"You, too, Sir," she replied.

"Heading South?" he asked, as he put on a smile for those in the crowd that recognized him.

She nodded in response, the brim of her hat flopping with the movement of her head.

"Shall we share a cabin?" he asked.

"If you insist, Sir," she answered as they boarded their train.

"Really, now, what's with this Sir business, aren't we on holiday?" he asked.

"I believe you started it, Sir," she noted, following him into an empty cabin.

"Well, no more titles, Riza."

"Was that an order, I thought we were on holiday, Sir," she challenged as she took off her hat, and placed it on the seat beside her.

"Last one," he promised, as he put the luggage in the overhead rack, and sat across from her.

**A.N.** If the President does not sign the bill within the required time period, the bill becomes law by default. However, the exception to this rule is if Congress adjourns before the ten days have passed and the President has not yet signed the bill. In such a case, the bill does not become law; it is effectively, if not actually, vetoed. If the President does sign the bill, it becomes law. Ignoring legislation, or "putting a bill in one's pocket" until Congress adjourns is thus called a _pocket veto_. Since Congress cannot vote while in adjournment, a pocket veto cannot be overridden. Replace President with Fuhrer and Congress with Gathering of Generals XD...so yeah, pretty much crack, but I couldn't help myself. Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed this little collection! So this piece and the last one kind of related back to what I call the "Guardian Arc" of my collection Back to Back. Riza owns the inn, because Gideon and Beulah have passed away and they left it to her, so the people she referred to taking flowers to are her father and them.

Thanks for reviewing: Dailenna, Bizzy, Kitsune Moonstar, Legendary Chimera, MoonStarDutchess, and Little Chemist.


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